Thursday, October 13, 2005

Train to Sevilla

Yes, every time I write "Sevilla" I think of Bugs Bunny as the rabbit of Sevilla. "There/you´re nice and clean/although your face/looks like it may gone t´rough a machine."

The unfairness of it all. trains are very condusive to writing, in that they give you large blocks of uninterrupted time to think and relect, along with an ever changing landscape that triggers contemplation and meditation. However, trains are also the worst place to write, in that the constant jostling makes legibility near impossible.

There was piped-in music on the train. It was the sort of bland, easy, adult jazz with vocals that would have made Louis Armstrong say "This shit is not what I had in mind." At one point, a rambling song came on, and I was momentarily convinced that the conductor was singing through the p.a., making up a song as he went along. The Decemberist´s legionnaire´s lament, though bouncy, was not enough to drown this out, so I had to switch my iPod to Del Tha Funkee Homosapien´s kvetch about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eventually, I go with the jazz vocal vibe and decide to listen to a superior example: Frank Sinatra´s "Come Fly With Me." Looking at the track listing, I formulate the idea of visiting each place he sings about before I die. It shouldn´t be too hard. London, Paris, New York, Chicago: already got those covered. Isle of Capri is scheduled for next month. That leaves Hawaii, Mandalay, Brazil, Vermont and south of the border. This will probably take several trips.